Why Silver Miners SSR, Coeur, First Majestic, and Pan American Jumped 10% or More on Friday

Shares of silver miner Coeur Mining (NYSE: CDE) were higher by 19% at 2 p.m. EDT. Following close behind were mining peers First Majestic Silver (NYSE: AG), Pan American Silver (NASDAQ: PAAS), and SSR Mining (NASDAQ: SSRM), up 10%, 11%, and 12%, respectively.

Silvercorp Metals (TSX: SVM) also jumped, peaking at a gain of 10% before pulling back into the high single digits. The main reason for the advance was fairly simple to understand: Silver was up by more than 5%. However, there's just a little bit more to the story here.

Gold and silver are both precious metals, but they don't always trade in tandem. The spread between the two metals, known as the gold-to-silver ratio has been historically wide of late. One of the interesting things about the gold-to-silver ratio is that some investors use it to decide which metal to own. It basically tells you how many silver ounces you can buy for a single ounce of gold. In the last century, the ratio averaged around 50 to 1. It's now more than 100 to 1. That suggests that silver is cheap relative to gold. But this isn't exactly a new trend; the spread has been widening for most of the last decade. Simply put, gold has been the better-performing precious metal.